RCMP says enforcement of banishment orders require assessment of complex legal issues
CBC News: Wolastoqey chiefs in New Brunswick are demanding action from the provincial and federal governments that would result in police officers enforcing band-enacted bylaws banishing unwanted individuals from their communities.
The six chiefs said in a letter that their earlier demands had “fallen on deaf ears.” The man accused of a recent homicide in Oromocto First Nation was the subject of a banishment order, they said, and police did not enforce it.
The chiefs say “jurisdictional buck-passing” between the federal and provincial governments has hurt efforts to control crime.
Sheri Lynn Sabattis, 54, was found dead inside a home in Oromocto First Nation on Saturday.
Jared Smith, 38, was arrested later that day and charged with second-degree murder.
Indigenous communities have the ability to enact band council resolutions aimed at banishing undesirable people, said Ross Perley, chief of Neqotkuk First Nation, also known as Tobique, in an interview.
He said his and most other Wolastoqey communities are policed by the RCMP through bilateral agreements, with the expectation that they enforce all laws, including those passed by the band council.
Wolastoqey chiefs demand support with banishment bylaw
WATCH | ‘That’s the systemic issue that all our communities face’: 4 days ago, Duration 1:04
Neqotkuk First Nation Chief Ross Perley says RCMP are not supporting the bylaws that would allow the community to banish individuals who aren’t band members.
Click on the following link to view the video:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/oromocto-first-nation-wolastoqey-banishment-1.7193926
But when it comes to resolutions banning unwanted individuals, he said the RCMP won’t act.
“The banishment orders would result in positive changes had we had the Crown and the RCMP to support them and enforce them,” Perley said.
“There’s tragedies that could happen in the future that can be avoided if we get the support from the Crown and the RCMP.”
Enforcement requires complex legal assessment, says RCMP
CBC News asked the New Brunswick RCMP for an interview about whether it enforces banishment orders issued by First Nation communities.
Instead of an interview, Cpl. Hans Ouellette sent an email in which he said band-council bylaw enforcement requires the “assessment of complex legal issues.”
“As police, we have to work within the parameters of all our legal authorities and obligations to ensure investigations are conducted justly and fairly, and to ensure we have the evidence needed to support charges,” Ouellette said.
He said the RCMP engages regularly with Indigenous communities, and other partners in the justice system, to identify issues of local concern, discuss solutions and set local policing priorities to pursue legal options.
CBC News also requested interviews with New Brunswick’s Public Safety Minister Kris Austin and federal Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc.
In an email, provincial spokesperson Alycia Bartlett said the government will work with Oromocto First Nation to provide whatever support it needs in the wake of Sabattis’s death.
“Government has engaged Indigenous leaders in how to effectively address concerns around criminal activity in their communities and will continue to work with any and all Indigenous leaders to develop solutions,” she said.
CBC News did not receive a response from Public Safety Canada by deadline.
Wolastoqey communities in New Brunswick aren’t the only First Nations to pursue the use of banishment orders as a way of keeping unwanted individuals out.
Last spring, for example, Mikisew Cree First Nation leaders in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., pledged to banish drug dealers from their community in response to an alarming string of deaths by suicide.
RCMP could enforce banishment orders, says lawyer
First Nation band councils have the ability to create banishment orders against non-members by way of the Indian Act, which allows them to enact bylaws around trespassing, said Peter Jones, a partner with Woodward and Company LLP, a Victoria, B.C., law firm that specializes in Indigenous law.
He said the Indian Act also spells out penalties for those who break those trespassing laws, which are limited to fines of $1,000 and imprisonment for up to six months.
He said the law under the Indian Act could be enforced similarly to criminal violations, however, the choice to do so appears to come at the discretion of individual police forces.
“If band council says, ‘We don’t want that person on there. They’ve got no legal right, they’re trespassing,’ so the RCMP should go and enforce that, and sometimes they do,” Jones said.
“But sometimes, you know, if there isn’t a good relationship between the RCMP and the community, sometimes … they won’t go and do it, so it really depends on the circumstances and on the community.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aidan Cox, Journalist
Aidan Cox is a journalist for the CBC based in Fredericton. He can be reached at aidan.cox@cbc.ca and followed on Twitter @Aidan4jrn.